The present invention relates to a method and system for generating a topology of a fiberoptic network of synchronous optical network (SONET) switches and for routing signals through the network.
Networks, both computer and telephone, have been around for many years. As the use of networks increased over time, so has the need for more bandwidth. Fiberoptic networks were developed to meet this need and transmit at high data rates. SONET was developed to be a standard for fiberoptic transmission.
An example, current SONET network is shown in FIG. 1. The nodes in this network have no information about other nodes in the network. Nodes are typically add/drop multiplexors (ADM). This network requires a system administrator to set up connection routes between port A 100 and port B 150 through ADMs 110-140. The system administrator may program the route to be from origination switch 110 through intermediate switch 120 to the destination switch 130, and must program each switch to pass information in this manner. If a failure occurs in any one of the connections, the system administrator must manually reroute the connections by reprogramming the switches. Therefore, in order to provision each of the switches in a SONET network it takes days for the network managers to insert all of the needed information.
Current SONET networks have line-level protection that provides protection lines for rerouting information when a working line fails. FIG. 1 shows working lines as solid lines an protection lines as dotted lines. If a working line fails the corresponding protection line is used to transmit information.
In the SONET environment, there currently does not exist any way to automatically create a topology of the network and generate a route between port A 100 and port B 150. In addition, current SONET networks do not provide any way of re-routing connections automatically due to a failed line.